Resistance units varied in size and composition, ranging from
individually operating guerrillas, armed primarily for
self-defence, to large and well-organised groups able to engage
significant Soviet forces in battle.

Background

Caught between two powers

Latvia had gained
her independence in 1918 after the
collapse of the Russian
Empire. The ideals of self-determination had taken hold with
many people as a result of having established an independent
country for the first time in history. Allied declarations such as
the Atlantic Charter had offered
promise of a post-war world in which
Latvia could re-establish itself. Having already experienced
occupation by the Soviet regime followed by the Nazi regime, many
people were unwilling to accept another occupation.

While the
Waffen-SS was found guilty of war crimes and other atrocities and declared a
criminal organization after the War, the Nuremberg
Trials explicitly excluded conscripts in the following
terms:

In 1949–1950 the United States Displaced Persons Commission investigated
the Estonian and Latvian divisions and on September 1, 1950,
adopted the following policy:

The Latvian government has asserted that the Latvian Legion, primarily composed of the
15th
and 19th
Latvian Waffen-SS divisions, was neither a criminal nor a
collaborationist organization.

The ranks of the resistance swelled with the Red Army's attempts at
conscription in Latvia after the war,
with fewer than half the registered conscripts reporting in some
districts. The widespread harassment of disappearing conscripts'
families pushed more people to evade authorities in the forests.
Many enlisted men deserted, taking their weapons with them.

The conflict between the Soviet armed forces and the Latvian
national partisans lasted over a decade and cost at least thousands
of lives. Estimates for the number of fighters in each country
vary. Misiunas and Taagepera estimate
that figures reached between 10,000 and 15,000 in Latvia.

Preparations for partisan operations were begun during the German
occupation, but the leaders of these nationalist units were
arrested by Nazi authorities. Longer-lived resistance units began
to form during the last months of the war; their ranks were
composed of a good number of Latvian
Legion soldiers as well as civilians.

The number of active combatants peaked at between 10,000 and
15,000, while the total number of resistance fighters was as high
as 40,000. One author gives a figure of up to 12,000 grouped in 700
bands during the 1945–55 decade, but definitive figures are
unavailable. Over time, the partisans replaced their German weapons
with Russian ones. The Central Command of Latvian resistance
organizations maintained an office on Matīsa Street in Riga until
1947. In some 3,000 raids, the partisans inflicted damage on
uniformed military personnel, party cadres (particularly in rural
areas), buildings, and ammunition depots. Communist authorities
reported 1,562 Soviet personnel killed and 560 wounded during the
entire resistance period.

The Latvian national partisans were most active in the border
regions. Areas where they were most active included
Dundaga, Taurkalne, Lubāna, Aloja, and
Līvāni. In the eastern regions, they had ties with
Estonian Forest Brothers. As in Estonia, the partisans were killed
off and infiltrated by the MVD and NKVD over time, and as in Estonia, Western assistance
and intelligence was severely compromised by Soviet counter-intelligence and Latvian double
agents such as Augusts Bergmanis
and Vidvuds Sveics. Furthermore, the
Soviets gradually consolidated their rule in the cities, help from
rural civilians was not as forthcoming, and special military and
security units were sent to control the partisans. The last groups
emerged from the forest and surrendered to the authorities in
1957.

Decline of the resistance movements

By the early 1950s, the Soviet forces had
eradicated most of the Latvian national resistance. Intelligence
gathered by the Soviet spies in the West and KGB infiltrators
within the resistance movement, in combination with large-scale
Soviet operations in 1952 managed to end the
campaigns against them.

Many of the remaining national partisans laid down their weapons
when offered an amnesty by the Soviet
authorities after Stalin's death in
1953, although isolated engagements continued
into the 1960s. The last individual guerrillas
are known to have remained in hiding and evaded capture into the
1980s, by which time Latvia was pressing for
independence through peaceful means. (See The Baltic Way, Singing Revolution) All three republics
regained their independence in 1991.

As the conflict was relatively undocumented by the Soviet Union
(the Latvian fighters were never formally acknowledged as anything
but "bandits and illegals"), some consider it and the
Soviet-Latvian conflict as a whole to be an unknown or forgotten war.

Trivia

The last known Forest Brother is Jānis Pīnups who become a legal
citizen again only in 9. may 1995. He went to
the forest in 1944 as a member of a resistance organization called
"Don't Serve the Occupant Army". Jānis Pīnups never had a Soviet
passport and his legal status was nonexistent during the era of
Soviet occupation. His hideaway was located in the forest of the
Preiļi district, Pelēči parish. In 1994 a new
passport of the Republic of Latvia was issued to Jānis Pīnups and
he has said that he's waiting for a moment when he can see Riga – capital of
once more independent Latvia.